Caterpillar's 'Very Important Play'- Weekly Photographs

Summer Term 2 week 3 (w/c 22/04/2024)

Summer Term 1 week 2 (w /c 15/04/2024)

This week we continued our activities relating to the terms topic book;

painting sunflowers using cardboard tubes and bubble wrap, sunflower/ flower pot number recognition and sequence cards and of course checking to see if our sunflower seeds had grown.

The weather has been warmer and the children have enjoyed watering the seeds daily. The seeds were just beginning to show a few shoots when we checked on Friday.

Mark making activity, making and copying patterns in the rice.

The children were very proud of their creations with the magnetic shapes and bobble bricks.

The children had great fun washing, drying and looking after the babies this week.

Summer Term 1, Week 2 (w/c 08/04/2024)

This week, it was lovely to welcome the children back after the Easter holidays and equally as nice to see some nicer weather.

Our topic book this term is 'Sam plants a sunflower' by Kate Petty and Axel Scheffler. Everyone enjoyed planting their own sunflower seeds in some compost and giving the seeds some water using the watering cans. 

The free flow play has enabled the children to choose to play indoors or outdoors and this week, with the nicer weather, the children have predominantly chosen to be outdoors.

Wonderful pieces of art created with paints, wax crayons and marker pens. Good to see the developing  pencil grasp.  

The role play, home corner is always popular for looking after the babies, cooking, cleaning or just talking on the phone.

Spring Term 2 Week 5  (w/c18/04/2024)

This week we focussed on the topic of Easter.

The children really enjoyed the various play activities, matching patterns on egg halves, playdough daffodils, colour sorting Easter eggs into baskets, creating a chick in an eggshell puppet.

The two activities the children enjoyed the most had to be, making the chocolate egg nest cakes and the Easter egg hunt, both activities involved eating chocolate ! 

Also there was great fun experimenting in the mud kitchen, lots of mixing and pouring.

The children embraced the finer weather and were pleased to be demonstrating their gross motor skills on the climbing frame, slide and other play equipment available to them. 

After a discussion about Spring time, the children enjoyed exploring the outdoor garden with magnifying glasses. The children took a close look at the buttercups, daisies, blossom buds on the tree branches and then searched the logs and hedges for bugs.

Great to have some sunshine.

Autumn Term 2 week 4 (w/c 11/03/2024)

Red Nose Day

On Friday this week, we joined the school in acknowledging the Red Nose Charity Day. The children could wear something red to school and donations were collected from those wishing to donate.

All our children and adults participated in wearing red. A few of the children were proud to have their photo taken.

Some of the other activities that the children enjoyed participating in.

Back in doors, one child carefully brushed up the spilt straw from the floor and placed it back in the tuff tray. He wanted the animals to remain hidden ready for the next person.

Spring Term 2, week 3 (w/c 04/03/2024)

Celebrating World Book Day

On Thursday this week, we celebrated 'World Book Day'. The children dressed up either in their Pj's or in their chosen book character. They all looked great in their costumes. We had The Hungry Caterpillar, Mog, Fireman Sam, Captain America plus others. We read books together and the children also chose to look at the books independently. We spoke about the illustrations and that we needed to read the words before turning the pages. Turns were taken to lift any of the books with flaps.

There were so many more opportunities for the children to enjoy yourselves independently too. 

Spring and Mother's Day crafts.

The children enjoyed demonstrating their creative skills this week again and were all so proud of their pictures.

Painting is always a very popular activity.

This week we used cotton wool balls on pegs to create our woolly lamb spring pictures. The Daffodil pictures were created with the use of painbrushes and the Mother's Day Daffodils were created using paint stampers and gluing egg box segments to create the daffodil funnel.

The sheep and daffodil paintings have been used within our spring display on the wall in the Caterpillars room.  

Spring Term  2 week 2 (w/c 26/02/2024).

This week, the children finished  off our artwork display for the Topic book display board, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

They have been very busy creating their fantastic art pieces, since the beginning of the spring term. 

The children have used a variety of art techniques to create this display. The Caterpillar was made out of balloons covered in paper Mache, a bit of a messy activity but one that was thoroughly enjoyed. 

Spring Term 2 week 1 (w/c 19/02/2024)

The tray of 'Popoid' toys and nuts and bolts were an ideal activity for the children to demonstrate their fine motor skills.

The fine motor skills again, demonstrated when the children enjoyed creating water colour pieces of art using pipettes and coffee filter papers. Continuing with our topic book display, the children took time sticking and gluing to create an image of an orange.

Spring Term 1 Week 5 (w/c 05/02/2024)

This was another busy week in Caterpillars.

We celebrated Lunar New Year, Pancake Day and Valentine's Day.

Lunar New Year,  saw the children tasting a variety of Chinese foods, Prawn crackers, noodles, prawn toast, sweet chilli sauce and fortune cookies. The children created their our own Chinese lanterns and created finger painted blossom tree pictures plus other fun themed activities..

Pancake Day  The children enjoyed the pancakes and fruit at snack time. They created faces, on their pancake with the fruit,  before eating them up.

Valentine's Day   The children made some Queen of heart tarts,

pastry bases with jam in, topped off with a heart shaped lid.

The other learning opportunities enjoyed this week included dressing up and creating imaginary play scenarios, having tea parties, making our own sandwiches and reading a book.

Spring Term 1 week 4 (29/01/2024)

This week saw the children putting the final layer of paper and paste onto their papier mache Caterpillar as well as creating art pieces for the display board. Pictures of juicy plums made by blowing bubbles with a straw in a paint pot then placing paper on the bubbles.

The dressing up clothes created fun for the children, one dressing up as a princess then a builder. 

One of the main mark making activities this week was copying patterns displayed on stones and drawing them in the rice or playsand with their finger.

The weather was nicer this week so we managed to have  a good few playtime activities in our outdoor play area and mud kitchen area.

Spring Term 1 week 3 (w/c 22/01/2024)

Another busy week in Caterpillars this week, with the children enjoying lots of fun activities. including

mark making with chalk on the blackboard, copying the letters from their names and sharing a hairdressing experience in the roleplay hair salon. 

In the Maths area, the children engaged in constructing some tall, complex towers using the big wooden  bricks. The children also displayed their understanding of matching colours and patterns, using the compare bears.

The children were also very focussed as they created our papier mache 'Very Hungry  caterpillar', this terms topic book. This week saw the first layer of paper and paste being spread over the balloons to create the caterpillar's body. To begin with, the paste was carefully applied with paintbrushes but it wasn't long before the children turned this into a sensory activity and decided to get their hands messy in the paste and use them to spread the paste over the balloon.

Spring Term 1 Week 2 (w/c 15/01/2024)

This week saw the Caterpillar children sharing some of their play experiences with the children in Butterflies. 

This provided the opportunity to promote the children's interaction and social skills further, as well as the opportunity to play with the different resources available to them.

The story shelf being a favourite. The children played with the finger puppet frogs and the farm animals.

The magnetic drawing boards inspired and encouraged the children's mark making skills. Great fun, repeatedly writing and drawing, then pulling the slider across to erase the image.

The messy play activities providing the opportunity to promote communication skills and experience the textures and materials in the  tuff tray.

Spring Term 1 week 1 (w/c 08/01/2024)

It was great to welcome the children back into Caterpillars this week.

We had a very busy first week, practising our mark making skills, using marker pens to follow and create patterns.

The children had fun, using their fine motor skills to create a model of themselves out of playdough, sticking the different body parts in their playdough body. Another exciting playdough activity saw the children fully absorbed and focussed. They explored the different footprints left on the playdough by the dinosaurs. They  used magnifying glasses to help them identify which footprints belong to which dinosaurs.

The home corner is always a popular play area. The children engage in great imaginative play, cutting up fruit and vegetables to create wonderful culinary delights. A couple of children chat over a cup of tea and a cake while another feeds the baby a bottle of milk.

The technology toys also provide another great opportunity for the the children to imitate their role models, emailing, talking on the telephone or tapping away on the keyboard.

Autumn Term 2 week 6 and 7 ( w/c 11/12 and 18/12/2023)

During these last two weeks of the Autumn Term the children have all enjoyed Preparing for Christmas.

The children had great fun painting with their feet, the paintbrush tickling their toes and making them laugh as they creaed footprint reindeer pictures and again using their feet to imprint on some clay to create reindeer tree decorations .Following on with the reindeer theme, we created Rudolf the reindeer prints, using a potato masher dabbed in paint to create the head, googly eyes and a bright red pom pom to create his nose.

We shared lots of Christmas books, reading stories and talking about the illustrations. The children also carefully coloured in some Christmas colouring sheets, using pens, crayons or Paint sticks.

Everyone enjoyed our Christmas party on the last day of term. We were all dressed in our Christmas jumpers, dresses or t shirts. Lots of fun was had playing pass the parcel, stick  the nose on the reindeer and some  musical games.

We welcomed the Mums and Dad in to Caterpillars to enjoy a festive orange juice and to sample the melted snowmen biscuits, mince pies and gingerbread men we had made before ending the session. We ended with a few Christmas songs and a sack of presents being delivered to us from the North Pole, to hand out to the children.

Wishing you all fantastic Christmas time and here's to a happy healthy 2024.

Autumn Term 2 week 5 ( w/c 04/12/2023)

This week sees the start of our Christmas and winter themed activities.

The Christmas tree has been positioned and decorated and the Christmas reading books have been placed in our special basket under the tree.

The elf has appeared and has found the ideal spot to sit and watch the children play, on top of the first aid box !

Shining stars have been created during one of this week's art and craft activity and snowmen have been created with the playdough. 

Autumn Term 2 week 4 (w/c 27/11/2023).

This week started with us embracing our topic book, 'Dear Zoo'. The children have enjoyed listening to the book being read to them over the past few weeks, taking take turns to open the flaps and completing the different topic linked craft activities. Some of the art pieces can be seen displayed in the Caterpillars room..

The threading activity was popular, with most of the children being able to independently thread the pasta onto the cord.

The role play 'Home corner' is one of the most popular areas in the room, especially the play food area. There is always plenty of fruit and veg being cut up, pizzas being made and cake being eaten.

The art activities this week included bubble and sponge painting, both of which were thoroughly enjoyed.. 

Autumn Term 2 week 3 (w/c 20/11/2023)

This week has seen the children enjoying so many learning opportunities, from being  

creative with playdough, making images and models of themselves, to building tall towers, using the large wooden building bricks.

The rice play sensory activity provided an ideal environment for the children to experience pouring, spooning or just playing in the rice with their fingers.

The outdoor mud kitchen provided the opportunity to create some culinary delights using natural materials, water and mud. We all enjoyed a pretend cup of tea.

The role play shop area encouraged the children to demonstrate their skills as a shopkeeper as well as a customer, shopping for food, fruit and vegetables. Great opportunities for promoting their communication skills.

The dressing up corner wasn't ignored this week either, with several children confidently taking on the role of the characters they were dressed up as.

Autumn Term 2 week 2 ( w/c 13/11/2023)

Another busy week in Caterpillars, where the children embraced the Autumn weather and enjoyed a fair bit of outdoor play. They especially enjoyed painting outdoor fences and posts with water, using big decorating brushes.

The children enjoyed this weeks Maths activities too. The Numicon and the colour sorting activities encouraged the fine motor skills. The children carefully used tweezers to pick up pom poms and place them onto the Numicon pieces or into the coloured dishes..

Wonderful towers or 3D cubes were created out of the magnetic triangles and squares. We also explored what else we could get the magnet shapes to stick to within the room. The radiators and metal table legs were the Favourites.

A couple of the children demonstrated their communication skills by just talking to each other on the telephone, a great conversation was had.

As part of our Children in Need Charity day, the children made Pudsey bear biscuits. Lots of measuring, weighing, mixing, whisking, rolling and baking until the perfect biscuit created and was ready to eat.

They were delicious. The children also enjoyed the Pudsey Bear finger painting. They were very patient as they waited for their turn with the paint tray.

Autumn Term 2 week 1 ( w/c 06/11/2023)

This week was a week of  celebrations, Bonfire night, Diwali and Remembrance day.

We have talked about Bonfire night and the children told us if they liked to watch the fireworks or not. The children created their own firework pictures with chalks and glitter and made fireworks with playdough, glittery pipe cleaners and shiny shapes.

The children embraced the Diwali craft activities, creating their own rangoli patterns in the coloured rice, mark making with crayons on the colour-in sheets and also creating their own vibrant diwali lamp.

The children learnt about Remembrance day and created their own poppies by using their fingers and carrot pieces to dab red paint onto their poppy template. 

Autumn Term 1 week 8 ( w/c 23/10/2023)

This week the children enjoyed planting some daffodil bulbs. They took turns to fill their plant pot with compost and then carefully positioned their bulb in the pot. The pots were placed  in our garden area. We talked about what the bulbs needed to make them grow and looked at pictures of what the flowers will look like when they flower next spring.

The children also enjoyed some autumnal activities. Mark making on a big pumpkin with the paint pod brushes, there was lots of colour mixing and talking about the colours.

The smaller pumpkins were turned into bird seed feeders by the children. The children enjoyed scooping out the pumpkin seeds, threading wooden sticks through to make a ledge for the birds, filling the scooped out pumpkin with seeds,  then finally threading and tying string through the holes so that the pumpkin feeder could hang in the trees.

To finish the autumnal activity week, the children embraced the apple painting activity,  mixing the colours when they could to create a the image of an actual apple.

Autumn Term 1 week 7 (w/c 16/10/2023)

A very busy but exciting week in Caterpillars again this week.

The children really enjoyed exploring with magnifying glasses, studying dinosaur footprints in the playdough, talking about their different shapes and sizes. Looking at spiders and talking about them looking bigger when we move the magnifying glass away. Luckily we all like spiders !

We celebrated a birthday with a group of children having a pretend tea party. Lots of tea was poured and cake was shared.

The children engaged fully in the fine motor skills activities, enjoying practising their scissor skills and using tweezers to collect and sort the coloured poms poms.

Again, following our 'This is me' theme, we had great fun creating our grass heads. We talked about what we needed to make us grow up to be healthily and strong and then what the grass seed needed  to make it grow. 

Autumn Term 1 week 6 ( w/c 09/10/2023)

The children enjoyed the cooking activity this week. Still following our 'This is me' theme, we created pizza faces.

We talked about the different food items and their colour and texture, then the children chose which items they wanted to create their pizza faces. 

Autumn Term  week 5 (02/10/2023)

This week we enjoyed practising our mark making skills by copying  patterns on the white board sheet, using marker pens.

Our music and dance activity was fun, stretching up high pretending to be a giraffe and stomping like an elephant.

Following our 'This is me' theme, we played with the hairdressing dolls and talked about our different hair styles and our different hair colours.

Autumn Term 1 week 4 (w/c 25/09/2023)

The children have played with the technology toys this week. The telephones being a firm favourite, imitating their role models by talking, sharing text messages and taking 'Selfies'.

We also enjoyed building towers with the big wooden bricks and then building a tower using the large Rainbow arch.

This tower was built  by carefully balancing each piece on top of the other, ensuring it didn't wobble and fall down.

A lot of time and thought went into choosing the right pieces to achieve this.

The sensory play activities  encouraged  the children to interact socially, talk about the textures and colours they are experiencing as well as  developing their fine motor skills.

Autumn Term 1 week 3 ( w/c 18/09/2023)

The children have enjoyed sharing their play experiences with each other, from reading books together to making cups of tea and eating cake in the  home corner.

The children's fine motor skills have been encouraged through pasta threading and the use of tweezers to collect and sort the coloured bears.

'What's in the box' is a favourite daily activity. We sing our 'What's in the box' song, then the children take turns to come and open the box and choose an item. They then talk to us about what the item looks like, feels like and what it does.

Autumn Term 1 week 2 (w/c 11/09/2023)

We have enjoyed playing outside in the nice weather this week.  We explored the mud kitchen and created some cereal bird feeders. These can be seen hanging up in the trees already, ready for the hungry birds.

The children also enjoyed the stepping stones and scooters where they were able to demonstrate their balancing skills.

Autumn Term 1 Week 1 (w/c 04/09/2023) 

We have enjoyed welcoming the children into Caterpillars.

The children have enjoyed lots of fun activities as well embracing the daily routines.

Our main topic for this term is ‘All about me’. We will be exploring and talking about who we are and what special people and things we have in our lives.

The children have created self-portraits using paints and collage craft, they looked in a mirror to look and talk about the colour of their hair and eyes.

We will also enjoy Autumn crafts whilst learning about the leaves changing colour and falling from the trees.

Our topic books will be ‘Hug’ by the author Jez Alborough and Dear Zoo by the author Rod Campbell.